Ed Sheeran quits Twitter after abuse from trolls | Music

Ed Sheeran quits Twitter after abuse from trolls | Music

Ed Sheeran has quit Twitter, citing overwhelming abuse from trolls.

The singer, whose album ÷ is the year’s biggest seller worldwide with 8m copies sold in three months, told the Sun: “I’ve actually come off Twitter completely. I can’t read it. I go on it and there’s nothing but people saying mean things.”

He added: “One comment ruins your day. The headfuck for me has been trying to work out why people dislike me so much.”

He said that Lady Gaga fans were some of those responsible for the abuse. “[They] read an interview in which they assumed I was talking about her and they all fucking hate. And it wasn’t anything to do with that at all.”

He’s the latest celebrity to leave the social media platform thanks to abuse. Normani Kordei of US girl group Fifth Harmony announced in 2016: “I’ve been racially cyberbullied with tweets and pictures so horrific and racially charged that I can’t subject myself any longer to the hate.” However, she has since returned to the service.

Actor Leslie Jones was also racially abused, after the release of the all-female Ghostbusters movie, while Lily Allen took a break from Twitter earlier this year, saying: “My timeline is full of the most disgusting, sexist, misogynistic, racist shit.”

Lena Dunham said Twitter “wasn’t a safe space for me”, while comedian John Bishop wrote: “I can take anything but when scumbags have a forum to abuse people I love I think it’s time to move away.” TV presenter Rylan Clark-Neal, meanwhile, said that homophobic abuse against him on Twitter was “ridiculous” and “getting out of control”.

The social media platform has been introducing measures to try to prevent abuse, including a “safe search” function that keeps abusive tweets out of search results.

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